Taking the Buell by the Horns

I’m not sure what it is with Colerain Township, but that area is absolutely loaded with urban legends. Within a few miles apart of each other you have the ghost of Amy on Lick Road, Munchkinville, Highway to Heaven ghost stories, and last but not least, the legend of Buell Road.

The road curves around multiple times past numerous houses, before straightening out for a couple hundred yards. This straightened portion is surrounded by dense woods on each side. The legend says that if you stop on this straight away and flash your lights three times, and then leave them off, a boy on a bike will appear around the corner behind your car. If he reaches you before you turn your lights on again, you will die in seven days.

Sounds straight out of Hollywood to me. The popular movie The Ring which starred Naomi Watts had the same theme to it where if you watched this creepy video you would die in seven days. Then in the movie ingeniously titled Seven Days to Live, the characters in it see signs of their impending death in, you guessed it, seven days. The whole seven days to live theory seems to be a popular scare tactic.

I drove out to Buell Road one afternoon, because once again I’m not looking to get murdered any time soon. I parked on the side of the road right before the straight away, got out of my car and walked. It was a little bit creepy, but mainly because there is no sidewalk and I was worried a car would come zooming down the road and turn me into another legend that haunts the road.

The road was covered with skid marks. Could it be from people peeling out late at night when they see a boy on the bike pedaling towards them? My guess would be no. But it may have something to with the fact that both sides of the road were littered with beer cans and forties. However, that would only make the number two spot on my list. My number one guess would be cars dodging deer or other animals popping out of the woods.

As I made it halfway down the straight away I got to a roadside memorial site. “May 29, 2007”. I was two days early for the two year anniversary of 14-year-old Lauren Dietz and 15-year-old Miranda Phelps’ death. The two were students at Northwest High School. The site was highly decorated. For more on the accident click here.

That crash site was the closest I came to any ghosts. However, there was nothing creepy at all about this road any more. It was sad. I don’t know how long skid marks last, but it made me begin to wonder which set belonged to the car Lauren and Miranda were in.

As I made my way back to my car, there was a black SUV that had recently passed me that was barreling down the road towards me…in reverse. “Ok, now this is creepy” I thought. As I reached my car, a middle aged man with glasses and a mustache pulled up next to me with his window down and asked, “Are you OK, ma’am?”He must have seen me walking away from the memorial site. I told him yes, we exchanged smiles, and he drove off. I started my car and did the same.

As I pulled off, I thought about how I had never felt so far out of harm’s way around a supposed haunted area. Buell Road is bull****. There is no spooky haunting, but rather a sad memorial site for two girls that died too young.

I owned a house on Buell Road in the early 1980’s. Nothing spooky happened when I was there. Deer would appear from time to time but I never saw one on the road itself. The biggest headache was the methane fumes that waffed down into the valley from Rumke’s dump – that might make your head spin – and that there would be spooky.

My heart goes out to the families of the youth in that tragic 3 PM accident on 5/29/2007, particularly to the families of the two girls who left us too soon, Lauren Dietz & Miranda Phelps. The accident was not related to the legend at all.

So you went to that stretch of Buell during the day and walked around and it didn’t feel creepy, so that debunks it for you? What?! I guess the going at night and flashing your headlights is just inconsequential to the legend?

C’mon! That’s a weak “debunk.” You’ve debunked nothing, and you are smart to refrain from trying it at night, which is incredibly dangerous.